Last weekend, I went to the Hammer Museum in Westwood to check out some of the current spring exhibitions. I was especially attracted to one particular exhibit, which showcased the works of Charles Gaines from 1974 to 1989. Entitled “Gridwork by Charles Gaines,” the exhibit looked extremely intricate and sophisticated at first glance. To be quite honest, I was initially attracted Gaines’ exhibit because first, I didn’t understand the artwork, and second, I saw that Gaines incorporated several numbers into his pieces— which I thought was strangely unique concept.
Here's the link to the Charles Gaines' Exhibit at the Hammer Museum:
Prior to visiting this exhibit, I had just finished watching Professor Vesna’s “Math & Art” lectures on the class website. Hence, when I stumbled across Gaines’ exhibit, I couldn’t help but notice his use of numbers to highlight the elements of depth and darkness within his photographs. I thought his artwork perfectly exemplified Professor Vesna’s point about the interplay between mathematics and art — how mathematics can further the study of art, and how art can further the study of mathematics.
Essentially, the exhibit showcases several photographs of random scenes in nature or of human portraits and then, theses photographs are paralleled with Gaines’ attempt to recreate the photograph using numbers and colors, thus “investigating how a rules-based procedure constructs order and meaning” within these images (Hammer Museum Pamphlet). In other words, Gaines labels the density within his photograph using numbers, thus studying the layers of content within a photograph (i.e. the denser the ‘area’ being recreated, the higher the number used to label the ‘area’).
I found this particular exhibit to be extremely relevant to our course because of how much it emphasizes the meshing of mathematics and art to create a deeper level of understanding regarding "depth" in photographs.
"Spring 2015 Hammer Exhibition Pamphlet." UCLA Arts. Hammer Museum. 2015.
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